Page 11 of These Hallowed Bones (Bloody Desires #3)

"Yes," I said, the decision both terrible and exhilarating. "Show me."

Ezra mixed a small amount of bone ash with oil. He guided my hand, showing me how to apply it to a prepared canvas. His fingers enclosed mine, warm and strong, gently directing my movements.

The powder clung to my fingertips like ash from a holy fire. It reminded me of the flaking skin on my mother’s hands near the end—fragile, shedding like something becoming unmade.

"You have to feel it respond," he murmured, his breath warm against my ear as he stood behind me.

"It's not like commercial pigment. It has memory.

Character." His chest pressed against my back, and through the layers of our clothes, I could feel the unmistakable hardness of his arousal against my lower back.

My breath caught, but I didn't pull away. "Do you feel the difference?"

The bone ash pulsed beneath my fingers in time with my suddenly racing heartbeat. His proximity overwhelmed every sense—the heat of his body, his scent of sandalwood and something darker, the weight of his attention focused entirely on me.

"Yes," I whispered, barely managing the word.

I turned my head slightly. Our faces were so close I could see the individual flecks of silver in his gray eyes, could feel his breath ghost across my lips. For a suspended moment, we hovered there, the inevitability of a kiss hanging between us like a held breath.

"Eyes on your work," Ezra said softly, but his voice had roughened, gone deeper. His hand settled on my hip, steadying me as I turned back to face the canvas. "Keep painting. Show me you understand the medium."

My hand trembled as I lifted the brush again. The bone ash seemed heavier now, weighted with significance and the acute awareness of Ezra's body pressed against mine. His hand began to move, sliding from my hip around to my belly, fingers spreading wide against the fabric of my shirt.

"Steady strokes," he instructed, though his own breathing had become less controlled. "Let the material guide you."

His hand moved higher, tracing the muscles of my stomach. When his fingers ghosted over my chest and found my nipple through the thin fabric, I gasped, the brush jerking across the canvas in an uncontrolled arc.

"Focus," he said, but his voice cracked slightly on the word. "Back to the painting, Micah."

I tried to obey, tried to concentrate on the bone ash and oil spreading across the canvas, but every nerve ending had become hyperaware of his touch. His lips pressed against the nape of my neck, so gently it might have been accidental if not for the way his breath shuddered against my skin.

"Yes," he breathed as I managed another stroke with the brush. "You're understanding it now. The way the ash accepts your intention, responds to your touch."

His hand drifted lower, fingertips tracing the waistband of my jeans before settling over my cock. The first gentle pressure of his palm made my knees buckle.

"Ezra," I breathed, my voice wrecked.

"I've got you," he said against my neck. "Keep painting. Be good and keep working while I take care of you."

His hand moved in slow, deliberate strokes, the friction of denim almost too much and not nearly enough. I tried to focus on the canvas, on the bone ash that connected us to something larger than ourselves, but my vision kept blurring.

"Does this feel good?" he asked against my ear, his hand stilling momentarily. "Tell me what you need."

"Yes," I gasped, pushing back against him. "It's—God, it's so good."

"Do you want more?" His fingers traced the outline of my cock through the denim, teasing. "Tell me how you want to be touched, Micah. Harder? Softer?"

"Harder," I breathed, my hips canting forward desperately. "Please, I need—"

"Faster?" he suggested, his hand moving in a maddeningly slow rhythm. "Or should I take my time? Make you wait for it?"

"Please," I whimpered, past pride now. "Faster. I can't—please, Ezra, I need more."

"Such beautiful manners," he murmured, rewarding me with firmer pressure that made my knees weak. "When was the last time someone touched you like this? When was the last time someone took care of you?"

"Never," I admitted, the word torn from somewhere deep. "No one's ever—"

"And when did you last take care of yourself?" His thumb circled the head of my cock through my jeans, and I suddenly couldn’t think. "When did you last allow yourself this?"

Heat flooded my face. "Weeks. Maybe... maybe longer. The medication they put me on made it hard to... and I thought if I didn't, maybe the thoughts would stop. I didn’t realize…I didn’t know what I was missing."

"My sweet boy," he murmured, and there was genuine tenderness beneath the desire.

"No wonder your work remains incomplete.

How can you understand the ecstasy of creation when you deny yourself the most fundamental pleasures?

How can you capture transcendence in your art if you've never allowed yourself to experience it in your body? "

His hand continued its slow exploration as he made his argument, a professor even now.

"Art is about truth, about capturing the full spectrum of human experience.

But you're cutting yourself off from essential knowledge.

Would you like me to teach you? To show you how pleasure and creation are inextricably linked? "

"Yes," I gasped, past shame now, past everything but need. "Yes, please, Daddy—"

The word slipped out before I could catch it, and my whole body went rigid with horror.

But Ezra's hand stilled, his breathing harsh against my neck. Then his grip tightened around my cock through the denim, not painful but firm, possessive, approving. "Say it again."

"I—I didn't mean—"

"Say. It. Again."

"Daddy," I whispered, and his hand resumed its movement with new purpose.

"Perfect," he breathed. "My perfect boy."

His free hand came up to steady my painting hand, guiding me to continue working even as his other hand undid my jeans. The cool air hit my heated skin for just a moment before his hand wrapped around my bare cock, and the sensation was so overwhelming I nearly dropped the brush.

"Keep painting," he commanded softly. "Keep creating while I take care of you."

I tried to, but my strokes became increasingly erratic as his hand moved on me with a sureness that made my breath catch. Every nerve ending seemed to fire at once, my body responding to his touch in ways I'd never allowed myself to imagine.

This was wrong. Everything I'd been taught screamed that this was damnation, that the heat pooling in my groin was hellfire, that the pleasure building in my spine was the devil's own temptation.

But if this was sin, why did it feel like salvation?

Why did Ezra's touch feel more sacred than any blessing I'd received in church?

My cock throbbed in his grip, harder than I'd ever been. But this wasn't like those desperate, guilty fumbles in the dark. This was deliberate, reverent.

My hips moved of their own accord, seeking more of Ezra's touch, and I gasped at how good it felt to stop fighting, to stop denying, to simply let my body want what it wanted.

"There you are. My good boy, finally letting yourself feel what you deserve." His lips pressed against the side of my neck, and I shuddered at the contact. "Do you have any idea what it does to me, watching you discover pleasure? Watching you stop fighting yourself?"

He pressed closer, letting me feel the hard line of his cock against my back, evidence of how much my surrender affected him. "You're making Daddy so proud," he murmured, and the combination of his arousal and his praise sent fresh heat spiraling through me. "So beautiful when you let go."

The bone ash on the canvas seemed to pulse in time with my heartbeat. My legs trembled, muscles I'd never been aware of clenching and releasing. I'd touched myself before, of course, but this was something else entirely. This was worship, but not the kind I'd been taught.

"How long you've waited," he murmured against my neck. "How long you've denied yourself. But you don't have to anymore. Daddy's going to take care of everything."

The word 'Daddy' sent a fresh spike of heat through me.

Not the father I'd never known, not the Father in Heaven I'd been taught to fear, but something else—protector, teacher, the one who saw my darkness and called it good.

My body shook, every muscle drawing tight as something immense built inside me.

Years of shame tried to surface—memories of cold showers meant to kill desire, of prayers begged through gritted teeth, of my grandmother's tears when she found those drawings hidden under my mattress.

But stronger than the shame was this: the feeling of being held, being seen, being accepted exactly as I was.

If God had made me wrong, then why did this feel like the first time I'd ever been right?

His words. His hand. The bone ash beneath my fingers. It all built into something like rapture. My body drew taut as a bowstring, every muscle tensing. I was standing at the edge of something vast and terrifying and holy.

"I—I can't—Ezra, I'm going to—"

"Let go," he said simply. "Let yourself have this."

Pleasure struck like rapture. Like being consumed from within by the God I was taught to fear.

My vision blacked out completely, my body convulsing with an intensity that bordered on religious ecstasy.

Somewhere distantly, I heard myself cry out—not the muffled sounds I'd trained myself to make, but something raw and honest and free.